Muhlenberg music prof celebrates a labor of love

February 15, 2013|Dave Howell, Special to The Morning Call

Douglas Ovens is a composer, musician and longtime chairman — 17 years — of the music department at Muhlenberg College in Allentown. He's stepping down as chairman and Wednesday is his 60th birthday. He celebrating with a concert, of course.

Ovens' works will be presented in "Love Songs and Other Wonders," which features poetry set to music. He will perform, as will a dozen other faculty and student vocalists and musicians and one guest artist.

"This is my ideal birthday party," Ovens says.

The works feature poets Alice Fulton, Pablo Neruda, William Carlos Williams, E.E. Cummings and Richard Exner. They are not soft and maudlin works. They dramatically show the strength and mystery of love and human interaction.

The songs are full of power and passion. They reveal different sides of love, which can overwhelm in ways that can be wonderful, but can also be all-consuming and even obsessive. The singing has the same dramatic effect heard in opera. The vocalists will have different accompaniment for each song. The instruments include vibraphone, a percussion instrument that is Ovens' specialty; piano, clarinet, cello, flute and percussion.

"There is a classical tradition of writing music to poetry," Ovens says. "Unlike popular composers, classical writers will look to other sources for lyrics. Nearly all the great poets have had their works set to music a number of times."

Ovens says the choice of each poem was personal.. "Every time I read one of these poems, I heard it becoming music, in spite of itself. It started singing to me." He notes that this is not true for all poems, and he cannot foresee which ones will affect him musically.

Ovens will accompany soprano Megan Monaghan on the first piece, "Yours and Mine: Three Love Songs on Poems of Alice Fulton." The Muhlenberg English department commissioned Ovens to write the piece for Fulton's visit to the college last March.

The theme continues with "Three Love Songs on texts of Pablo Neruda," which will be sung by Brian Chu, baritone, with Vincent Trovato on piano.

Other works on the program are "Two American Songs: Dance Russe and Smell!" (poems by William Carlos Williams), sung by Steven Snow, tenor, with Tony Simons, clarinet and bass clarinet, David Moulton, cello and Michael Schnack, piano, and "She Sings … (poems by E.E. Cummings) sung by Lauren Madigan.

One of the poems is "Schwarzgeburt (Black Birth)" by Exner. It stems from the bombing of Hiroshima. "It is about what humans can do to each other," Ovens says. It is one of the "other wonders" of the program's title; in this case the wonder is "extraordinary" rather than "wonderful." It will be the only work not performed in English, with a translation provided in the program pamphlet.

The works will be sung by Brian Chu, Benjamin Doyle and Matthew Livigni, supported by a chamber ensemble comprising James Thoma and Ryan Gross, percussion; Elaine Martin, flute, and Schnack and Simons.

The closing piece will be the instrumental "Sonata (for Idil)," performed by pianist Hanchien Lee. Ovens wrote the piece for Turkish pianist Idil Biret, who premiered it at Muhlenberg on Feb. 15, 2009.

Lee is a rising young star, and has performed all over the world since her debut with the Philadelphia Orchestra when she was 16. She has visited Muhlenberg twice as part of its solo piano series, which presents about four artists a year for 25 years. Ovens says, "She is a passionate interpreter, bringing a fresh style to the classical repertoire."

Ovens has written music for the Allentown Symphony, the Lehigh Valley Chamber Orchestra, avant-garde dance productions and theater productions. When jazz vibraphonist Gary Burton was a Baker Artist in Residence at Muhlenberg in 1995 and 1996, Ovens wrote the piece "78 West" for him. He has also begun to write an opera.

Ovens says there have been 350 to 400 performances of his music all over the world. In June, he will play piano in Buenos Aires as part of the College Music Society International Festival to accompany his "Largo for Violin and Piano." In July he will perform "Yours and Mine" at Christ and St. Stephen's Church in New York City at a National Association of Composers concert.

He has presented a number of concerts at Muhlenberg, including one in 2007 consisting entirely of electronic music. He has released four CDs — his 2007 solo CD "Seven Improvisations" features his work with mallet instruments and other percussion.

Ovens also has written electronic works. He has used computer software, including Pro Tools, but says, "I like writing best at the piano with a pencil and paper, and while smoking if it didn't hurt you." He gave up the latter habit 30 years ago.

Born and raised in Walla Walla, Wash., Ovens was originally a rock 'n' roll drummer, and at one time studied to be a guitarist. He gave up rock after he got his B.A. in Music Theory and Composition from San Francisco State. He took up mallet instruments to study composing.